Innovation

Sahara Forest Project is utilizing a brilliant approach in response to the current environmental and agricultural problem the world faces today. After an intense construction period, The Sahara Forest Project Facility in Qatar became operational in December 2012. The pilot facility provides a unique research platform to demonstrate and optimize environmental technologies that will enable restorative growth in desert areas around the world. After receiving outstanding results from the Qatar pilot, the Sahara Forest Project team decided to build a new facility in Jordan, seeking to expand the effects of the successful pilot.

Though they are already using existing technology, Sahara Forest Project’s innovation goes far beyond the classic sense of innovating a new product. What this group is seeking to do is to shift the thinking of the world from an extraction point of view to that of a restorative one. The brilliance is their proposition “to rethink the way we utilize our resources and rethink the design of the production systems and set it up to create growth”.

The core of Sahara Forest Project is in the company's drive to create something that is “good for the environment, good for business and good for a social benefit." Therefore, it is only natural that a group of people so dedicated for good innovated the system that is now known as the Sahara Forest Project. The heart of the project is the technology and the way it is utilized in the company. The main components are the saltwater cooled greenhouses, solar energy and desert revegetation. The greenhouses use saltwater to provide suitable growing conditions that enable year round cultivation of high value vegetable crops even in desert conditions. By using seawater to provide evaporative cooling and humidification, the crops’ water requirements are minimized and yields are maximized with a minimal carbon footprint. Sahara Forest Project uses mirrors to concentrate the sun’s energy to produce heat that is then used to make steam to drive a steam turbine, which in turn drives a generator to produce electricity. Finally, the technologies for desert revegetation are a collection of practices and technologies for establishing outside vegetation in arid environments, such as evaporative hedges.

Inspiration

Sahara Flourish Project has existed for several years. Vice President, Mr. Stake explained that it all started with a group in the UK who were interested in greenhouses that used solar energy. Then when Norwegian NGO’s and other partners got involved, there was a drive to make the ideas available within a closed loop system.

The Sahara Forest Project concept launched as a novel way of greening the deserts by bringing environmental technologies together inspired by biomimicry. The inspiration for Sahara Forest Project stemmed from many of the world's most pressing challenges, such as energy demand, the need for increased food production, water scarcity, climate change and desertification. It also stemmed from nature.

By observing natural biological systems, the Sahara Forest Team noticed the difference between the current linear process of transferring resources into products and the systems in nature. In the ‘traditional’ process various waste accumulated, but in nature waste is very rarely encountered. Organisms that waste resources and energy have very low chances for success. From this, Sahara Forest Project has designed a technological system where the waste product from one technology is used as a resource for another.

Because the problems are closely intertwined and in discovering that the biological system is the best way to tackle these problems, Sahara Forest Project agreed that we need an integrated solution to approach such intertwined problems. The solution for one sector should not come at the expense of another. From all these discoveries, the project was born.

Overall impact

The Qatar pilot has proved an impact in the community economically, environmentally and socially. The Qatari nation imports 97% of its food. With the pilot project, the goal is to domestically produce food which then makes produce cheaper and more easily accessible for the local population since it’s cheaper to produce in Qatar than to import it. In only 9 short months, the pilot was using ½ the water for the greenhouses than any other greenhouse in Qatar and was producing high quality food in the desert. The project is self-sufficient, generating a positive ROI of 815%. This is an incredible feat in the agricultural world.

In turn, the pilot in Qatar has helped the local population and local economy become more self-sufficient while creating clean energy for the environment. Mr. Stake explained that the pilot in Qatar and the new facility in Jordan are only the beginning of Sahara Forest Project’s on ground effects but that the biggest impact the team has had has been raising awareness to the problems they are addressing.

The Sahara Forest Project tried to create awareness by participating at the 2009 UN Climate Negotiations in Copenhagen, Denmark which helped spark more interest in its developing ground work. Sahara Forest Project is creating a “holistic approach” to the rise in food scarcity, energy consumption, water scarcity, energy related CO2 emissions and desertification.

Business benefit

There has been a return on investment of 815% for the pilot project in Qatar.

Social and environmental benefit

Not only is the Sahara Forest Project team seeking to save the environment through revegetation of desert areas to provide local produce, clean water and energy, they are also seeking to do this through the creation of green jobs. Sahara Forest Project is socially helping the local community as well as economically and environmentally.

Interview

Kjetil Stake, Vice President